best laptop around $500

i got the vostro 1500 when they had the $500 off deal on them, ordered it w/ xp home cuz it was cheaper, ran 3dmark03 straight out of the box and got a 9429, wiped it clean right after and did a fresh install of xp pro w/ all updated drivers and patches etc, ran the same 3dmark03 again and got a 10686 before i started tweaking the registry settings. but i’ve been very pleased w/ my vostro.